Many off road vehicles are presently equipped with electric or hydraulic recovery winches. These winches allow the vehicle owner to extract the vehicle out of a ditch or other hazard in which the vehicle may be stuck. Typically, a winch has a recovery line that terminates in a loop end, which accepts a common recovery hook. The recovery hook provides a connection point for a towing strap. A typical recovery winch may come equipped with the hook already attached to the cable loop. The hook is typically connected to the loop by a shear pin and cotter pin.
A drawback of the hook is that the opening of the hook may allow the towing strap or chain to come out of the opening. Additionally, the standard hook opening is not large enough to simultaneously hold two ends of a typical recovery strap. Although some hooks are equipped with a safety latch that prevents the mating rope or strap from coming loose from the hook, these latches are weak and are not designed to accept high loads.
In recent years it has been a common practice to replace the typical recovery hook with a pin or bolt type shackle. The larger opening and positive pin closing feature of a shackle avoids some of the problems associated with a recovery hook. Nevertheless, use of a shackle in this way is not without drawbacks of its own. The present disclosure identifies ways in which use of a shackle in this way may be problematic. The present disclosure additionally includes a winch attachment directed to avoiding these identified problems, as wells as gaining other advantages.